GOFL: Picking up your ball from the hole

[touchfaith]

I don't know why, but this has recently puzzled me (trival things puzzle me).

Doesn't the act of picking up your ball out of the hole damage the area directly around the hole more then spikes ever could?

When bending over, all of you weight is on that front foot, which is typically within just a foot or two of the hole itself, and I would think this would cause massive depressions, particularly in the case of some of the guys like Daly.

This of course is going to be less common on the hard greens we mainly see on TV, but what about when the greens are soft, for instance, just after a rain?

I guess I am just surprised that, with all the bitching that can go on about spike marks or the likes, caddies are not required to retrieve the ball from the hole with one of those old-dude suction-cup things people put on their putters.

[kerssens]

Also, most of the people jam their putter into the ground and use it as a cane when they're bending over.

[Vince Young]

GOFLcopter?

[RacersEdge]

Foot imprints naturally go away - spike marks don't.

[CD56]

golf etiquite says that you dont step in someones line to retrieve your ball

[SossMan]

[ QUOTE ]
golf etiquite says that you dont step in someones line to retrieve your ball

[/ QUOTE ]

yeah, but what about the group behind you? You think they will have the exact same line? You think the group ahead of you magically didn't step in 'your' line?

[doughhater]

Dave Pelz addressed this question in his book "Putt Like the Pros. He took scientific samples from numerous types of greens sampling everything from different types of grass to different amounts of moisture. He coined the term Lumpy Doughnut to describe the area around the hole noticing that few golfers actually step within a foot of the hole. The result is a fairly pristine circle 2 feet in diamater around the hole with a doughnut shaped concentration of footprints around that circle.